Friday, March 28, 2014

Thank you to our speakers!

The Museum hosted three stimulating local speakers in March, who presented on topics relevant to our current exhibit, "A Sense of the Land and its People: A Personal Collection".

Archbishop John Clarke spoke of growing up in Moose Factory, James Bay, Ontario and the 18 years he spent as a clergyman in the diocese of Moosonee. He worked with the community to develop education and training opportunities for residents in this northern region. He brought cultural objects from these early years and fondly spoke of the people who created them. Some were given as gifts or, like the pair of Inuit dolls, gifted to his father in much earlier times.

Archbishop Clarke shows the audience some of the First Nations artifacts he has from his years in Ontario.

Lyle Fullerton, of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, began with an historical overview of the buffalo in northern Alberta. He then described the current status of the population in and around Wood Buffalo National Park. His work monitoring the health and the habitat of these herds over the past 22 years makes him a most informative and engaging speaker. He even brought a leg bone from a buffalo recently killed by a wolf to demonstrate the shear size of these animals. Lyle has been asked to return for an update presentation this fall.

Lyle Fullerton speaks about buffalo herds with YL, the Museum's buffalo head, in the background.

Roger spoke to an appreciative crowd, mainly artists themselves, about how his Cree culture influences the imagery he uses in his paintings. His years of work includes designing the current Northern Lakes College logo, 12 murals in the town of McLennan and works regularly featured in Alberta Native News. You can still see a selection of Roger's paintings at the Museum until April 17th, 2014. He calls the exhibit "My Cree People - the Sacred Circle". These works are for sale.